60 pounds overweight, seriously done..

**Beautiful Disaster** · 01-26-2012 11:14 AM

WM - Here are some things I gathered just from your breakfast: It sounds healthy. Granted. But when you actually look at each individual item, you learn many things (that's what the myfitnesspal and calorie counter apps help you do). Some of my info may be inflated or deflated marginally based on not having all the specifics:

1 cup of HBO cereal is 173 calories. Not so bad. 3.3 fat (2 of which is monounsaturated good fat). BUT, that cup of cereal has 34.7 of carbs. Only 2.7 in fiber and 2.7 in protein. 8.0 grams of sugar. So basically, MOST of your carbs are what I call "filler" carbs.

1/2 cup of 2 milk has 61 calories. 1.5 grams of fat, 5.7 carbs, 12 grams of sugar and 4 grams of protein.

1 cup fat free yogurt (no idea if yours was fat free or not) has around 100 calories. 20 grams of carbs. No fiber, 6 grams protein, 15 grams of sugar.

Banana has 90 calories. 25 carbs. 3 grams of fiber. 1 gram of protein. 14 grams of sugar.

So: 424 calories approx

by the end of breakfast you had already consumed well beyond the amt of sugar (49 grams) you should be allowing yourself in an entire day (you should have no more than 20-30 grams of sugar in an entire day and if you're going to have 20-30 a day they need to be in the form of natural sugars the fruits).

You consumed 85.4 grams of carbohydrates. Only 5.7 of those carbs were fiber. And 13.7 were protein. There is a distinct imbalance.

I got all this info from myfitnesspal. When you enter in your own stats, it will give you an estimate of how much of each thing you should have per day.

A few more things: no after supper snacks. This is a hard habit to break I realize. But snacking on sugar and carbs before bedtime is a recipe for fat production. That's something you must cease. In addition, I noticed you mentioned no exercise yesterday.

Where oh where are you exercise???

**Winged_Muse** · 01-26-2012 09:10 PM

Sooo really don’t know if today will be any better or not. It began like this:

Breakfast- Apples+Cinnamon oatmeal, then had a vanilla greek yogurt. Both of those together were 250 calories.

Break time snack was a fiber one bar again at 90 calories.

Lunch was ham and cheese sandwich again, a banana and about a dozen carrots. Altogether about 607 calories.

Had a little veggie tray consisting of broccoli, carrots, almonds and a little slice of cheese for snack after I got home. 310 calories in there.

Dinner was a home made meat and cheese calzone. Only ate a fourth of it though since it was so big. No idea how many calories there. Not really the best choice but the only real option I had as in my family really needs to go grocery shopping soo yea, I’m sure that was like 1000 calories or more.

Not sure what I’m doing wrong. To many things to count, to many things to watch it’s just confusing me more hence why I usually don’t count calories. Most of it being because I don’t know how to do it effectively.

No workout yet this evening, planning on a pilates video later on tonight.

**snooks** · 01-26-2012 09:29 PM

I'm not much of an expert on calories and really only dabble a bit in nutrition - others I hope will make more informed comments to give you better guidance, but it looks a better day to me. However you ar eating way too much meat. Meat should never be the largest ingredient in a meal. Your dinner was totally out of balance. Your meat portion should not be larger than a pack of cards with the bulk of the meal taken up with vegetables. I would cut some of the cheese as well. Try some greens with your ham sald instead as suggested before a couple of times.
Good luck with the pilates.

**Winged_Muse** · 01-26-2012 09:39 PM

It was 3 pieces of ham and hardly any meat at all today. Like I said, I had a fourth of that calzone, not very much meat in it at all.

**Beautiful Disaster** · 01-27-2012 07:20 AM

Not sure what I’m doing wrong.

Did you read my last post? If so...it seems pretty clear to me what you're doing wrong. Your nutrition isn't balanced, and you're not getting NEAR enough exercise. It's that simple.

To many things to count, to many things to watch it’s just confusing me more hence why I usually don’t count calories.

If you're trying to manually count calories, then yeah...getting frustrated is your own fault because there are resources that do it for you. And again, this is NOT about "counting calories", it is about learning the nutritional value of what you put in your body and creating a balance.

Try myfitnesspal for 2 weeks. Commit to it and input everything that crosses your lips (except water...though you can add that too if you want). If you eat 1 hershey kiss, put it in there. If you add sauce to a sandwich, that needs to be included, etc etc. You can input your exercise in as well. If you are not willing to commit to something that is proven effective, I will seriously question your dedication to getting healthy. It's easy to talk about it. The proof is in the actions.

**Cyndie32** · 01-27-2012 07:29 AM

keeping track of the food that you eat along with learning about healthy nutrition is a new skill.... that with dedication and persistence you can learn. your not just going to learn it all in a day or even two. i have been doing this for almost three years now and i am still learning. it is just like anything else in life.... practice makes perfect!!!!!

**CHANDLERS WISH** · 01-27-2012 01:32 PM

WM, I suggest that you read ACE's thread, quite inspiring... You need motivation and to believe in yourself if you want to succeed.

You have to WANT to do this...

**snooks** · 01-27-2012 05:13 PM

I would suggest too, that when a comment is made that you don't particularly like, that you quit being defensive and exhonorating yourself somehow by saying BUT I.... Try looking objectively at the good advise given, don't take it as an attack on you, but learn from it. If all we ever said was how good you are doing, what would that benefit you. We are actually all trying VERY hard to help you. Don't take our energies and advise for granted! (Thank you occassionally for a useful point wouldn't go amiss!)

How have you done today? have you taken any of our hints and put them onto practise? What are your plans for todays exercise? Good luck. We all actually do want to see you succeed at this this time. You may be young and not too worried about your future health yet, but believe me, the years are suddenly on top of you and before long you will seriously regret it if you don't get into the habit of living a clean life that is good to your body. Stick with it and seriously apply yourself to learning the new life skills we are attempting to help you with.

**Aeryn Sun** · 01-27-2012 06:57 PM

I am not sure if this will help you balance out your diet, but you can try the Zone Diet style of eating.
It requires you to eat a balanced meal, every.time.you eat. Full meal or snack, you eat a protein, color carb, fat.

It's hard, but so is eating healthy.
Try it, see if you can do it.
1/3 plate = lean meat
2/3 plate = color carb

Dash of sauce.

In the end though, how does one lose weight? Simple. Burn more calories than you consume.

1 hour of Pilates is going to burn 200-400 calories ish.
You would need to do 2-3 hours to match what you ate today, 4-6 hours to burn more if you wanted to lose weight.